Maggie: My Life in the Camp. Maggie Jooste

      When this intriguing story, told by Margaretha (Maggie) Jooste, of her reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War as a young girl, landed on my desk, I knew it was a winner. There are many accounts of the war told by those involved in this epic event in the history of South Africa, but this one is remarkable because of its unusual angle. It is the story told by an intelligent and observant girl who first experienced the war in her home town of Heidelberg in the South African Republic (the Transvaal), and who was then taken to two Natal concentration camps, first at Pietermaritzburg and then in Howick.

      Maggie, who was born in 1886, was 13 years old when the war broke out in October 1899. She had her story typed up in 1962 at the age of 76, when her mind was still as clear as a bell. She recorded her reminiscences in Afrikaans originally and then translated them into English. There is no doubt that she could write very well, proof of which we find in her censored letter written at the tender age of 14 to her former teacher, a letter that is included in Emily Hobhouse’s book The Brunt of the War and Where It Fell. Equally engaging is Maggie’s prize-winning entry for David Graaff’s essay competition – an account of camp life, which she had to write in English. Clearly she had a special gift for writing, both as a young girl and in her old age.

      Maggie came from an Afrikaans-speaking family. One should not make the mistake of calling them “Dutch” – this is inaccurate, because they spoke Afrikaans and considered themselves Afrikaners or Boers, as did most of the Boer residents in the two republics, the Orange Free State and the South African Republic. Maggie’s father, Jakobus Petrus Jooste, was a successful wagon-maker and farrier in the town of Heidelberg. He “had an excellent income and could provide his family and big household with everything needed”. Her mother was Anna Susanna Jooste, her maiden name being Jooste as well. The family’s English-speaking friends in the town, notably the Russell family, obviously had an influence on young Maggie’s mastery of the English language.

      At first, for residents of the small town, the war was a distant event, happening far away at the various fronts. We learn of the men of the Heidelberg commando (including her father and elder brothers) who were fighting, initially on the Natal front, and then on the western front. Much of the news at this stage was mere rumour. And then the British occupied Heidelberg. Maggie gives the date, correctly, as 23 June 1900. From then on we are given insight into the plight of the townspeople. We learn of their hunger and privation.

      And then, on 5 December 1900, Maggie’s mother received curt instructions. She was to get ready with her children – they were to be transported to a concentration camp the next day.

      The concentration camp system was first introduced by the British commander-in-chief, Lord Roberts, in September 1900. The original idea was to accommodate the Boers who had taken the oath of neutrality and had agreed to abide by Roberts’s proclamation of 15 March 1900. This laid down that these Boers would refrain from further participation in the war and would be permitted to return to their farms. However, after the occupation of Pretoria by Roberts in June 1900, there was a revival of the Boer military effort, and the oath-takers were re-mobilised or re-commandeered by the Boer leadership. This revival of Boer resolve became so serious that Roberts decided to accommodate the oath-takers – who were called “hensoppers” (hands-uppers) by those doughty Boers who were still on commando – and their families in refugee camps in order to protect them. The first two such camps were established in Pretoria and Bloemfontein in September 1900.

      Meanwhile, Boer leaders such as General Christiaan de Wet had become so active in their raids on the British lines of communication, breaking up the railway lines, capturing trains and taking British supplies, that on 16 June 1900 Roberts issued another proclamation. This stated that in the event of an attack on a railway line, the farmhouse closest to the incident would be burnt down. But even these drastic measures failed. In early September 1900, Roberts extended his policy to include the destruction or removal of all food and fodder supplies within a radius of 16 kilometres, hoping to cut off the commandos from their sources of supply. In practice this meant that an area of 547 square kilometres was devastated, razed to the ground, for every attack or attempted attack on the British lines of communication.

      Not surprisingly, British officers in the field received the impression that they had Roberts’s official approval to burn and destroy at will, and numerous homesteads and even towns went up in flames in areas where no Boer attacks had been made.

      With the protected Boers and their families being sent to the so-called refugee camps, Roberts decided that the Boer women and children who had been rendered homeless because of the scorched earth policy should also be taken there. These Boer “undesirables”, as the British called them, soon outnumbered the “hands-uppers” and their families. The camps now became concentration camps or internment camps.

      When Lord Kitchener took over from Roberts in November 1900, he continued the destruction of supplies and resources on the farms with even greater determination than his predecessor. His instructions allowed officers in the field a great deal of leeway. Crops were destroyed indiscriminately and cattle, sheep and horses were slaughtered or driven to the British camps.

      Townspeople with high social profiles were by no means spared the humiliation of the concentration camps. The affluent Jakobus Petrus Jooste and his wife, Anna Susanna, Maggie’s parents, fell into this category, and on 5 December 1900 Anna Susanna and her children were taken to a concentration camp.

      The reader is drawn into an almost unthinkable world of privation and despair. There are vivid portrayals of the awful journey to the campsite by train, the ordinary day-to-day drudgery of living in the camp, the scorn and resentment the “undesirables” felt towards the “hands-uppers”, the never-say-die national spirit prevailing among the “undesirables”, the religion to which they clung, the education in the camp schools, the advantages of having money, disease, the hospital, death, and more.

      Writing 60 years after the events, Maggie bears no hatred towards the British for what befell her and her family. As she puts it: “I do not blame anybody, nor am I bitter, but I cannot forget our sufferings and the privations we endured.” She is remarkably even-handed in her comments on the British soldiers, and tells us of occasional acts of kind, for example a British guard giving them tins of syrup. But she also writes of a British soldier who tried to “catch” her, and we see a glimpse here of the darker side of life in the camps, of sexual predation and abuse. This issue, by the way, was also raised with concern at the peace talks at Vereeniging in May 1902.

      There is no pretension or posturing in this text. One learns

Скачать книгу